ABSTRACT

This chapter highlights a range of stories about homes, kinship and neighbourhoods told by middle-aged gay men that address some of the problems absent from accounts of queering of the home. It provides a brief review of the key themes in literature concerning gay kinship and uses of the home and neighbourhood and explains the research design. The chapter summarises the theoretical points of learning for practitioners and also provides some recommendations for social work practice. Scholarship on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGB&T) ageing usefully addresses forms of exclusion - socio-economic, socio-psychological and the double invisibility of LGB&T individuals on grounds of age combined with sexual and/or gender difference. The chapter focuses on sociological accounts of home as a material site of emotional performances, intimacy and identity-production. The resources of ageing and ability to create friendship families are uneven and reflect dominant cultural and socio-economic inequalities that relate to differences and divisions of social class, exacerbated by homophobia.